The One Reason I Shouldn't
by VegetaCold
Summary: Danny finds that his ghost powers are becoming too much to deal with, and he considers telling his parents so they may remove his powers. But then Vlad presents him with the one reason he shouldn't...himself. NO YAOI fools.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Well, I have three days left of school, and since I'm going to have so much time now to update, I thought I'd publish one of the stories I wrote in science/French. This one was actually kind of hard to write, because I wasn't sure how intelligent to make Danny's inner mind or whatever the hell you call it sound. I mean, when I'm talking and/or thinking to myself I usually use pretty advanced words and I'm only a year older than Danny (I only know that because my favorite episode is the first one we see Vlad in, where he says in that crazy ass British voice, "You're only what, fourteen?), but to me, and no offence to all you bitches who love Danny like he's the guy you're doing it with at night, but he seems a little...unintelligent. So I really was not sure how to write from his point of view, but God knows I didn't want to listen to my teacher blabber on about WAVELENGTHS for an hour and twenty minutes, and I've never written in Danny's POV before, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Please tell me I didn't suck. Please. Or I will cry myself to sleep tonight ~VC

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"I think I should tell them," I said one day as I stood by her locker and watched as she rummaged through it, searching for one of her battered poetry notebooks.

Sam paused momentarily to stare at me, raising one of her thin, dark eyebrows. "Your parents?" she said, sounding confused but also somewhat amused at my suggestion, as if she thought I were joking.

"Yeah," I responded carefully. I understood that she was asking _why_ rather than for clarification, and although I knew my answer wasn't satisfactory, as my teachers-or maybe Vlad-would say, I wasn't exactly sure how I should go about explaining what she did want to know.

But it looked like I would have to find some way to answer that question, _why?_, because she said, raising her eyebrow further, "Why the hell would you want to do that, Danny?"

I thought about it for a minute, trying to decide the best way to explain my reasoning to her. I hadn't mentioned this to anyone else, and although I knew that if anyone would understand, it would be Sam, I knew that she couldn't stand it when I complained or sounded even remotely sorry for myself, and I wasn't sure I could say this without doing exactly that. I decided that I just had to launch into it, even if I did sound slightly pathetic, because I thought that Sam would be able to see past it and realize that I truly needed her help and advice.

"Well, I... Sam, this is...my ghost powers...they're just getting to be too much to deal with. I...I just really don't need all the extra trouble they're causing me. I mean, my parents are already threatening to ground me for life if I don't bring my grades up by summer...said they were going to kill me if I skipped another class...but with these powers, I just don't see how I can _not _skip another class, how it would be possible for me to bring my grades up. There's just way too many ghosts. And I thought if my parents knew...well, they might be a little more understanding when I come out of school this summer with a huge "F" on my report card and have three weeks of detention for skipping out so much. They might even...I don't know, be able to help."

She raised her eyebrow further still and frowned deeply at me. "What do you think they'll be able to do for you, Danny?"

"Well...maybe...maybe they'll be able to...to remove my ghost powers."

She stared at me blankly for a moment, her expression unchanging, before she turned back to her locker and started looking through it again. She pulled out her poetry notebook, followed by a silver tube of dark purple lipstick. She glared into the small, cracked mirror on her locker door and started to apply a thick coat of lipstick on her lips.

"What do you think?" I asked uncertainly while I watched her.

She continued to stare into the mirror and apply the lipstick, and without turning to me, she said "Doesn't sound like you talking, Danny."

I frowned at her backside. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, the Danny I know would never give up so easily. When so many peoples' lives depend on him, he would never let them go unprotected. Even if it meant having to deal with a little extra hardship now and then," Sam sneered, still refusing to face me but glaring at me in her mirror.

"Sam, that isn't fair."

She spun around and looked me in the eyes. Her own were narrowed in uncontrolled anger. Her mouth was twisted in a scowl and she bared her teeth. Surprised and frankly frightened, I took an involuntary step back.

"Do you know how _selfish_ you sound right now?" she shrieked, drawing the attention of other kids passing by in the halls.

"Sam," I whispered, disturbed, offended, and even slightly embarrassed, "you're making way too big a deal out of this. I just-"

"God, it's like I don't even know you anymore!"

With that, she slammed her locker shut and stormed past me, shoving open the door to the girls' bathroom and going inside. I was left in the middle of the hallway with everyone staring at me, and there were a surprising number of kids still there despite the fact that class had already begun. Dash, of course, and his gang of jocks, who never showed up to class on time, were there to witness my humiliation and of course started to laugh. Soon enough, everyone there was also laughing at me, and I simply stood there and listened, too disheartened to do anything else.

"Aw, looks like his little girl friend dumped him!" Dash said, causing the laughter to get louder.

I sighed and internally prayed that my humiliation would end soon, and I guess God was listening, because soon enough Mr. Lancer came out into the hallway and ordered everyone to get back to class. I slowly started for my literature class when Mr. Lancer said, "Not so fast, Mr. Fenton."

I sighed deeply and smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand. "Mr. Lancer," I tried, "I didn't do anything wrong."

"Of course you didn't, because you're the type of student who gets straight A's and has never missed one of my classes, correct, Mr. Fenton?" he sneered sarcastically, his hands on his hips.

I sighed and slammed my forehead against Sam's locker. Mr. Lancer grabbed my wrist and started pulling me through the hallway, to the principle's office, I assumed at least. I let him drag me, knowing it was pointless to defy Mr. Lancer once he'd made up his mind.

But when we'd almost made it to the end of the hallway and to the stairs, Mr. Lancer suddenly stopped dragging me. Confused and slightly alarmed, I looked up at him and saw that his normally pale green eyes were now hellishly red. He frowned down at me for a moment, staring deeply into my eyes, until a malicious smirk spread across his face and he let go of my wrist.

"You know, Daniel," he sneered, "I don't think I need to take you to the office."

I stared up at him in surprise. "You don't?"

"No," he hissed, his grin widening. "In fact, I think that Dash Baxter is the one who needs to be taught a lesson. Do you agree, Daniel?"

"I...I guess so."

"Well then, I should be getting to it."

"Oh...okay."

He flashed me that unholy grin again before turning away and walking down the first flight of stairs. When he got to the landing where I could still see him, he looked back up at me just as I was about to go back down the hallway to my literature class.

"Oh, Daniel?" he called, making me pause and look back.

"Yeah?"

"This time, let's just talk before we engage in battle, shall we? I need to tell you something, little badger."

He then turned and disappeared down the next flight of stairs, leaving me with my mouth hanging open and my eyes wide in disbelief and rising horror.

I felt a cold, rough hand fall on my shoulder and I slowly turned around.


	2. Chapter 2

When I turned around and saw him standing there, my heart froze in my chest. The beat actually seemed to _stop_, like a scratched CD does when its contents are being blasted out one of those old time CD players my _parents_ probably still use.

Vlad was grinning at me, but the grin was somehow soft, somehow filled with understanding, compassion, all those other emotions that I would _never _associate with Vlad but that he might associate with me, and weakness. I thought he looked almost glad to see me, and that his grin was _goofy_ more than anything, the sort of grin my parents had had on their faces when they'd reunited with everyone from college. Stupid, really, but happy nonetheless.

"Hello, little badger," he said, and his voice was almost _welcoming_, as if it were inviting me to come in and get lost in it. "It's been a little while, hasn't it?"

"I wouldn't know," I snapped almost immediately. I was frightened, of course—it wouldn't be fair to pretend I wasn't. But that fear also caused something else in me—hostility. I guess I had found throughout so many months of ghost fighting that my fear and anger were directly linked, and that they almost lived off each other, a sort of Ying and Yang, like all those posters Sam kept on her walls to "instill peacefulness". If I was angry, I was afraid, and if I was afraid, I was angry. So I said with rage burning in my eyes as I glared up at him, "I've been too busy with all this freakin' homework. I heard that was your fault, by the way."

"Oh, Daniel, why in the world would I have done that to you poor _teenagers _when I know how busy you already are, especially _one _of you?" He lifted a slim finger and tapped the tip of my nose.

Pulling back in disgust, I hissed, "You're sick, you know that? You have no idea how hard my life is! You have no idea how much _shit _I take _everyday_ from _everyone_! You have no idea _at all_!"

Vlad frowned; his expression showed something like concern. "Daniel, calm down."

"Oh, that's so _fucking _easy for you to say, Vlad! Because while I'm trying to protect the town and maintain a relationship with my goddamn family and friends and graduate from high school and get a job all at once, you're sitting back sipping wine in your castle in Wisconsin! How _dare _you even say that? You have no right at all! And how _dare _you try to screw around with me like that? _Convincing the school board to increase homework to make me crack!_"

"Daniel—"

"_Well, you did it! I_ _cracked! I'm tearing my hair out, Vlad, I'm tearing my hair out!" _I reached up, grabbed a fist of my unwashed hair, and yanked. I let the strands I'd pulled float to the ground.

Vlad watched with an expression of concern and disbelief, but watered-down, muted, because Vlad, I came to realize, was incapable of showing any emotion other than arrogance and anger so clearly.

I started to say something, something like, _Are you happy now, Vlad? _when he reached out, pulled me into his arms, and swept his cape around me. Teleporting us, somewhere. I didn't even think he _could_ do that, and maybe he hadn't been able to, maybe not before. Maybe his powers were improving. The thought made me groan internally, because that was one thought I always dreaded.

But, as we teleported, I was not exactly capable of thought. My mind was consumed by outrageous sensation of teleporting itself. It was kind of like drowning, I thought when it was over. I had almost drowned when I was younger, while I was swimming in our pool in the backyard and I'd swallowed water and my parents were too distracted with one of their new ghost hunting weapons to come to the rescue. It was Jazz who ended up saving me. But I never forgot how that felt.

Drowning, I realized, was a senseless process. It was almost as if you didn't inhabit your body while it occurred, because your mind emptied and your breath left and you shut down and a sensation came, one that was like being completely incased in bright, warm light…but your soul screamed. It knew what was happening and yelled, yelled helplessly, trying to save its host but unable to intervene. OOB, Sam said. An out-of-body experience.

This, I realized, was what teleporting felt like.

When it was over, we were in Vlad's office, the mayor's office, which was now disgustingly decorated with a portrait of his face that took up an entire wall. He let me go and walked over to his desk and sat down in his chair. I stood there, stunned for a minute.

"Daniel," he started, "why don't you sit—"

"_WHY IN THE NAME OF GOD DID YOU DO THAT?"_

He stared at me calmly, his hands clasped, his eyes cool and calculating, the way a shrink stares at their patient while they go off on a detour of angry comments, unfazed, much like Spectra had stared at me while I ranted.

"We need to talk, Daniel," he said simply. "I told you that."

"Talk!" I exclaimed, appalled.

"Yes, Daniel."

"What in the hell…?"

"Sit down and I'll tell you."

It took awhile, but I finally sat, because I didn't know what else to do.


	3. Chapter 3

"I know what you're thinking, Daniel."

He was staring at me with cold, calculating eyes, eyes that held no compassion, like those of a coroner examining a newly-dead body, one that died of some very rare pathogen—hurrying to _understand_, rather than mourn for the death itself, young or beautiful or gifted this person might have been. One hand was on his chin, the fingers slightly rubbing his stiff gray beard in that distracted, oh-so-cliché manner, the elbow perched on the wooden desk, the fingers of the other drumming repeatedly on its surface.

"What am I thinking?" I replied, but I already knew…because I knew what _he _knew. He'd seen my fight with Sam in the halls; there was no denying that, and he had heard me threaten to remove my ghost powers. And now he wanted something. Something I could give him—_promise _him, because I had already formed a not-so-vague idea of what, exactly, that something might be.

Maybe I was incorrect, but I was not ignorant to the fact that if I had just kept my mouth shut, I would not be here now.

"I heard you and your friend talking in the hallway," he said, affirming my belief…and making my heart sink and my stomach lurch, because internally I was praying he had brought me here to try and seduce me with the same stupid reasons he always did—he could take care of me _so_ much better than my father, give my mother and I whatever we wanted, train me so that I became the perfect ghost warrior, and so on and so forth, etc., etc. As crazy as it might have been, I was hoping sincerely he'd ask me to kill my father or to give him my mother's phone number, waiting for him to ask me to come to my senses and join him. These things, at least, held a strange, familiar quality, one that was almost comforting. But this, the idea of him prodding me for incredibly personal information which derived from my sex life, was just so foreign and unsettling, something I didn't need on top of everything else…and it was only nine o'clock in the morning.

"Sam," I managed, trying to sustain my usual wise-ass mannerisms. "Her name is Sam."

"That isn't the point, Daniel," he said softly, his fingers still drumming on the desk. "My point _is_ I heard you taking."

"And?" I said softly, suddenly struggling to meet that cool stare he had fixed so intently on me, one which seemed so experienced and all-knowing, so completely unavoidable. It was as if looking into those eyes with my own would tell him all he needed, and so I looked down at my hands, clasped in my lap, the fingers of one hand tugging at those of the other nervously.

"You had mentioned you had the notion to tell your parents about what has become of you so they may remove your powers."

"_And?_" I said, but I already knew, as I always had.

"_And_," he said sternly, now looking a little agitated at my exaggerated stupidity. "I'm going to advise you now that doing so is not a good idea, Daniel."

"Why not?" I questioned—and this time, I was actually ignorant to his reasons.

He sighed softly, removing his hand from his chin and silencing his drumming fingers.

"Oh, Danny," he said softly, and that cold, calculating expression of a coroner melted away and in its place there was another set of emotions he might normally associate that weakness and that _I_ definitely never expected him to express—a deep compassion, understanding, and above all, sadness. "Do you really believe they would accept you for what you are now?"

"Of course I do!" I screamed at him, jerking my gaze up to glare at him with hatred burning in my eyes. "They're my _parents_!"

"Yes," he said softly, his eyes dimming and his eyebrows coming together. "But Danny…" he suddenly and unexpectedly reached across the desk and took one of my hands in his. "They hate ghosts."

"But they love me!" I cried, jerking my hand out of his disgustedly…but I wasn't, because his touch had been almost _comforting_.

"Daniel," he said again with the same concerned and practiced gentleness, "they may love _you_, but they despise Danny Phantom. Do you remember when I put that money on your head? I've never _seen _such concentrated hatred for someone radiate off a single person as it did your mother and father when they helplessly went about attempting to catch you. Danny, they wanted nothing more than to dissect you!"

"They wouldn't have if they'd known it was me!" I barked, gripping the armrests of my seat with so much force that I ended up tearing into the upholstery.

"They would, Daniel. I've know your mother and father much longer than you have, and I can assure you, if they were to discover your identity, no longer would they view you as a son. I can guarantee that if you so foolishly reveal yourself to them, they will never let you up off a cold metal slab in the depths of your basement."

"That's not _true_!" I shrieked, and my fist came down on the desk with such force that it sent a long, splintering crack up its width. Shards of wood flew up and around my hand as it created a gaping hole in the smooth, expensive—at least I assumed—surface of the desk, and flew in all directions, skimming Vlad, who had cringed away, and hitting me in the face, slicing into my skin so deep that I started to bleed. The desk, now split into two, spilled its contents into the newly made pothole in the center, one that was so deep I could see the gray carpeting beneath our feet; notebooks, paperwork, a jar of pens and pencils, picture frames, and a desk lamp with a jade-green shade all went sliding into the hole and crashing on the carpet underneath.

Vlad sat back in his chair, his eyes wide and his mouth open just a little…and I could see something I had never seen in those eyes before—fear.

I stood there and stared at him for a long time, my fist and arms and face embedded with splinters and bleeding rapidly, but I didn't notice the pain.

He was too amazed, much like myself, I could see, to respond to me, or even move to deal with what I did—to do something, _anything_—and he simply sat there wordlessly, staring at me with eyes that didn't seem to fit his usually so composed features.

After maybe a minute or so of complete, stunned silence from him, I shook my head and turned to the door of his office. "I'm going now," I said abruptly as I walked out.

It was only after I had stepped out of his office and shut the door behind me that I heard him scream.

"_Come back, Danny! I'm not finished!_"

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A/N:

Please review and I'll give you more soon!


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